The Conservatives will today put higher education in their battle plan for the next election by promising to scrap tuition fees, saving some undergraduates up to £9,000, and abolish the government's target for attracting working-class students.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, will pitch for middle England by pledging to end the maximum £1,100-a-year tuition fee paid by students from wealthier families, and reverse the government's plan to let universities charge up to £3,000 a year from 2006.

He will also promise to disband the planned admissions regulator, the Office of Fair Access, and remove Labour's manifesto policy of ensuring that by 2010 one in two under-30s enters higher education.

Scrapping fees would save students and their families up to £700m a year, say the Tories. A Conservative government would "save" £480m by curbing expansion of higher education, and avoid £200m in planned spending by scrapping the regulator and other measures including the "postcode premium" paid to universities who take students from poorer families. Some courses run as three-year degrees would be downgraded and made shorter.

The policy may appeal to middle-class families worried by fees, and puts clear water between the two main parties on university funding. The Tories have calculated there is a much smaller price to pay in angering vice-chancellors who argue that universities are desperately short of money.

The policy also means abandoning the efforts of some rightwing academics to persuade the party to allow universities unfettered freedom to charge the fees they want, "the going rate", which could have meant charges of more than £10,000 a year for some students.

Damian Green, the shadow education secretary, said yesterday that universities would be able to bid for extra funds from central government. "We accept that parts of the system are underfunded, and we think that, if we are going to preserve world-class universities, we need to bite that bullet."

The Conservatives would give grants to poorer students, though they have yet to specify their worth.

"The biggest deterrent to widening participation is tuition fees - we are abandoning them. This is the single best thing anyone can do to encourage people from non-traditional backgrounds to go to university," said Mr Green.

Charles Clarke, the education secretary, believes he can get his tuition fee plans, set out in January after a tortuous 18-month review of higher education, through the Commons. His solution was warmly received by many commentators and universities. But he faces the prospect of a substantial Labour rebellion, driven by backbenchers who would prefer an orthodox "graduate tax".